Lazing Out @ Horsley Hills

This post has been long overdue; I do not know why I could never sit on this and get it out from its draft mode. Finally, I decided enough is enough and started to pen down all that fun-filled moments that I spent this beautiful place called – Horsley Hills…cool, wet, chill and serene…

When you have a long weekend and you do not feel like being at home, then what do you do? If I were you, then I would pack my backpack and run to nature would be at its best, secluded and beautiful…That’s what we did (Ashwin, Shiv, my kids and me) did. The best part was that we had this place on our mind for a very long time, but whenever we planned it, it would get postponed due to some or the other reason. But, this time we all three adamant that we are going to make to this place come what may...

Horseley Hills, is really not very famous, it is a beautiful virgin hill station in Andhra Pradesh close to Tirupati. It is also known as “Andhra’s Ooty”, and we will talk about its history soon, when we actually reach the place.

It was early Saturday morning; Ashwin was at my home sharp 6 AM to pick us up. I had packed lots of things to eat, as I was sure we had a long way to go with the kids, and yes also I managed to smuggle in a flask of strong hot coffee. We all were set for the trip, and as usual me at the backseat with my notepad where I had made notes about the routes, diversions, eatouts, and what all can be covered during our stay there. And of course, I have a habit (call it bad, if you want to) of making a note of expenses that have been incurred during the trip. That’s the reason; Ashwin and Shiv call me “munimji”.

Horseley Hills is about 500 kms from Hyderabad and we decided to take the Kurnool route to Horseley Hills. We all set out in our Santro and the route that we took was: Hyderabad - Jadcherla - Kurnool - Gooty - Anantapur (on NH7, turn left on NH205) - Kadiri – Horseley Hills. The roads near Kurnool were horrible, and we had to be careful, otherwise the road before that was awesome.

On the way, we stopped to “Ghar” dhaba to have a lunch. We preferred having thali and food was awesome. We refreshed ourselves and moved ahead. We actually missed the turning near Kadri, a small u-turn that we had to take to drive up the Horseley Hills. Once you cross Kadri village, you need to keep you eyes open to see the sign where it says – “Welcome to Horseley Hills” The moment you see the sign, take that turn and viola, you are entering the hills. Drive carefully, as you need to read the signs and enter an archway that takes you through the hairpin bends to reach Horseley Hills. By the time we reached the AP Tourism Hill Resort at Horseley Hills, it was quite late, should be around 8 PM. We were not sure if we would get the rooms or not. We decided to try our luck and asked for the Governor’s Bungalow. Lady Luck was smiling on us and we got the rooms. We drove down to the Bungalow and checked in. Freshened up and we decided to walk down to Haritha Restaurant to have dinner.

There was chillness in the air and I just loved it. It reminded me of my school days, when I used to ride my bicycle to school in the chill weather. After dinner, we walked back as slowly as we could, enjoy the silence…

Next day morning, I am not sure we all got up pretty early, but I was one lazy one out there this time and wanted to sleep for some more time under the warm blanket. Ashwin, Shiv and Adi went for their morning walk and came back all pinky pinky types. They told me that it was worth the effort and they really enjoyed it.

By the time, they came back; I had got up and was ready to start to look around. The place is cut off from rest of the civilization, so a good way to break free from office stress, relax and enjoy oneself with nature. There are few places that you could spend time – Forest area, opposite to Haritha Restaurant, a small temple (little away from the Haritha). And yes they also have activities like adventure sports. Though set up in a small place, but they are maintaining it pretty well.

First thing in the morning, we decided to have breakfast at Devdas, a small eatout just opposite the Haritha restaurant. We loved the hot idlis that were he served for breakfast. After breakfast, we decided to enter the Forest area, where Adi was busy feeding the rabbits, ducks and peacocks. We walked quite a lot and it was nice to see the flowers and nature’s beauty….

This place gets it name from a British collector of Cuddapah – W.D. Horsley. He used to spend his summers at this place. Within the forest area, you can see the place where he used to stay. Next to that bungalow, there is a Eucalyptus tree which is about 150 years old and is believed to plant by Horsley himself.

You get a very beautiful view from this area. The hills, the plateau looked awesome and we just loved it.

Then on an impulse, we decided to drive down the Talakona falls. And we all rushed back to room, picked up a small bag and drove down. We asked for instructions and drove down. As we neared the falls, we heard the waterfall and we all were ecstatic, but it did not last long as reached the falls. All our imagination about the waterfall was broken, when we saw the waterfall - there was not enough water there. Anyways, we discovered another place – I forgot the name, where they had nice log cottages. You can actually stay there and go for jungle safari…

Once we were back to Horseley Hills and spent another day or so lazing around, lapping in whatever Mother Nature had in store for us. Our two days trip was over before we could realize and we had to return home. Before leaving the place, I did a pamphlet, which had the details of booking the room there. I am posting that information for future reference:

For enquiry and reservations contact: Haritha Hill resort, Horsley Hills, Madanpalli, Chitoor Dist, AP. Phone: 08571-279323

Other Central reservation offices:

Office Location	STD Code	Phone	Fax
Bangalore	080	41136373	22385513
Hyderabad	040	65581555, 23450165	23453086
Basheerbagh	040	23298456/57, 657466370
Secunderabad	040	27893100, 27816375
Tirupati	0877	2289120/126/129
Vizag	0891	2788820/21, 98488 13584
Vijayawada	0866	2571393
Kurnool	08518	270104, 273325
Chennai	044	65439987	24353373

Awesome Bidar

Bidar…the name has always attracted me; I do not know the reason why. Finally, my dream of visiting Bidar came true. On July 31, 2010, my friend Ashwin and Srirama called me and informed me that they are planning for Bidar and asked me whether I would be interested. They were little worried as I had just back to normal health after the bout of typhoid. Frankly speaking, I was little bugged with my routine schedule of home, work and then sickness. I wanted to break free from this routine and wanted to let go off myself and enjoy. Since my hubby, Shiv is also one traveling freak…so there were no second thoughts about making this trip. Before we embarked on this journey, we did a through search about the place, eatouts and whatever information we felt is important to know.

On August 01, 2010, Ashwin picked up Srirama and my family from our respective homes. The best part is that from my home location, Bidar is about 115 Kms. We left Hyderabad at 6 AM in the morning, all of us (Ashwin, Srirama, Shiv, my two little ones and I) bundled together in Hyundi Santro. It was nice to feel morning air and being a weekend the roads were empty. We could actually zip through at a comfortable speed.

We took the following route: Kukatpally > Madinaguda > BHEL > Patancheru > Sangareddy > Zaheerabad > Bidar. The route to Bidar was excellent, full of greenery and we enjoyed the drive. The four-lane route was awesome and the morning weather made us feel hungry. Though we had enough eatables, but we were really not ready to binge on them. While searching about information, we had found that on the way about 65 Kms from Hyderabad, there is a Haritha restaurant and we decided to make out pit stop there and have good breakfast. While I ordered breakfast for everyone, my kids (Aditya and Arjitha) along with Shiv, Ashwin and Srirama had a great time in the small play area that they have. Refreshed, we proceeded further.

As mentioned earlier the roads were awesome and we need to cross a jungle area before entering the Bidar town. When we entered Bidar around 10:30 AM, we saw that the roads were cleaner and well maintained, and on our right we saw the fort gate. We had planned all the places we wanted to visit – Water cave Temple – Narshimha Temple, Papanaashi temple – Shiva Temple, Bidar fort, Chaubara, Bahamani tombs, The Madrassa of Mohammed Gawan, Gurudwara, and then do some shopping for Bidriware.

Our first stop we made was at Sri Kshetra Jharni Narsimha temple – a water cave temple dedicated to Lord Narsimha. This temple is situated in a large cave below the Manichoola hills. To reach the entrance of the temple, we had to walk about 50 to 60 steps, and the valley in which this temple is situated is very beautiful. Since we traveled to this place after the rains, it was green all around and was very soothing to our nerves. We had to wade through waist deep water to get the darshan of Lord Narasimha. This temple is believed to the swayambu roopam of the Lord Narashimha and is very powerful.

This was an awesome experience for us, especially wading through chest deep water, with bats and owl hanging within the cave’s rooftop. It took almost 30 minutes to reach the main deity. One of the temple priests told us that one actually take seven turns to reach the Lord and I never realized this until I was told. Amazing fact….

Frankly, speaking I really do not know from where does the water enter this cave. It is believed that this perennial stream of water starts its journey from the foot of the Lord and it has been flowing for a pretty long time, and none of us knew from when.

After a good darshan, we came out and found a nice place to change our clothes, and then we started for the Gurudwara, also known Nanak Jhira Saheb. We started on the route to Gurudwara, but then we saw a board informing us about the Karanja Reservoir.

And as always we started for that place. Rather than taking the right turn for the Gurudwara, we went in straight. The route was so beautiful – full of greenery, you will not believe if I say we started to contemplate if we can get accommodation in the government bunglow, which was pretty close by to the reservoir. But the lady luck was not smiling at us, so we had to abandon our plan and be happy - enjoying the reservoir. We spent sometime there, took some snaps.

Then we started back towards Gurudwara, we asked an auto wala give us directions. But before the Gurudwara, we took a turn left to visit Papanaashi Temple - Shiva temple. We had to drive through that hill-like route to reach the Shiva temple. We stopped the car close to temple premises and then proceed to have darshan.

The legend goes that Lord Rama prayed here when he was coming back from Lanka. He was told that he needs to establish 12 lingas, as he had killed a Brahmin. So Lord Rama started doing that. When he came to this place, he found that Shiv Linga was already established. So he performed the puja here and went ahead...thats the reason it is called Papanaashi Temple.

We had good darshan and did the aatri and then we visited the Hanuman temple nearby and then started for Gurudwara, which is made of marble. Right in front of the Gurudwara, they have a nice water tank, for which the water from the Nanak Jhira (Water Spring) has been directed for pilgrims to have a holy dip.

It is believed that Guru Nanak, when he was touring the place down south, he stopped at Bidar, but when people complained about the scarcity of water. On hearing, about the water issue, Guru Nanak uttered ‘Sat Kartar' touched his wooden sandal, which he was wearing from a nearby hillock, and removed a stone. To the surprised and delight of all, unrest rain of clean sweet drinking water started gushing out.

We spent sometime at the Gurudwara, and then we proceeded to have a lunch. You would lot of chota chota dhabas in the vicinity of Gurudwara. But we decided to have at Rohit restaurant, which was vegan place. Food was excellent, but service was slow.

After lunch, we decided to cover the Bidar fort, Chaubara, Bahamani tombs, The Madrassa of Mohammed Gawan, and then do some shopping for Bidriware. The fort was awesome – 5.5 acres of the place. The entrance to fort itself is grand…You need to keep honking at each turn to avoid accidents

Most of the places inside the fort are kept under lock and key. We got hold of a guide, who showed us around and explained each and every thing. The guide who assisted us was a good one. He explained each and everything, and we found it a beautiful experience. For more information on Bidar fort, refer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidar_Fort

At the end of the fort, we tipped the guide handsomely and he seemed to be very happy. It took almost the entire afternoon and it was almost evening that we proceeded to Chaubara, and did some shopping. Chaubara – is a grand old clock tower. Take the right from there and you are in the area, where you would loads of Bidriware shops. We picked few things and we had to bargain a lot. The one thing that caught my attention was – intricate the work, more was the price for the article.

After all the day’s action and fun filled trip, we were exhausted and we decided to turn back to Home Sweet Home….Given a chance we would love to go again…esp to cover the fort again!!